In its ongoing mission to make learning great again, Kahoot! today hit a number of stats few companies can brag about: The company celebrates 40 million monthly active users and a total of 1 billion players moving through its platform over the past four years. Read More
Fitbit’s big smartwatch announcement is, it seems, still a ways off. But the company’s got a pair of announcements this week, including an update to its popular Alta tracker and changes to the way it gathers sleep tracking. The Alta HR is an update to last year’s Alta, a well designed piece of hardware that has since grown into the second-best fitness tracker (behind… Read More
Okta, the $1.2 billion identity management startup for enterprises that some tip for an IPO this year, has made an acquisition of sorts to expand one of its newer lines of business: managing IDs across APIs and apps. Today the San Francisco-based company announced that it has picked up the team from Stormpath, an early mover in providing a way for developers to implement authentication… Read More
The Nintendo Switch’s Bluetooth controllers work with a range of different platforms, it turns out – making for some of the most flexible console controllers currently available. The Xbox One and PlayStation DualShock 4 controllers can also connect to a range of devices using Bluetooth, but the Joy-Cons seem to be ready to use with Macs out of the box with no additional software,… Read More
If you’re into social media and fashion, you may be familiar with LIKEtoKNOW.it. Launched in 2011, the social shopping service lets influencers on blogs and social platforms like Instagram and Snapchat get paid for their work. Over the last year the company claims to have driven $1 billion dollars in sales for retail and brand partners from over 12,000 influencers. While… Read More
The battle for supremacy in India’s e-commerce space looks set to become a slug out between two gigantic global players: Amazon and Alibaba. At stake is one of the world’s fastest growing internet markets. India’s online population is tipped to reach 450 million-465 million people by June 2017, according to a new report co-authored by the Internet and Mobile Association… Read More
Y Combinator is Improving upon its Fall 2014 Stanford course, How to Start a Startup, with a larger scale online course called Startup School. Whether you swear by startup bibles like Both Sides of the Table or Zero to One, there’s no denying that Y Combinator, now having backed over 1400 startups, has a tip or two to share about starting… Read More
HomeTouch, the U.K. home care marketplace, is announcing its nation-wide launch today, along with revealing that it now counts 500 Startups as a backer. Read More
IBM announced today that it was updating its Quantum Experience cloud with a new API that it hopes will increase the abilities of researchers and other interested parties to build more sophisticated applications with its experimental quantum computing system.
Last May, IBM opened up its 5 qubit computer in its NY state labs to the public in the form of a cloud service. The hope was that by… Read More
The spoiler on a future Ford car you buy might be 3D-printed. Ford Motor Company announced on Monday that they’ve begun testing 3D printing of large-scale parts, using tech provided by 3D printing industry giant Stratasys. The pilot project is designed to find out how Ford might be able to use 3D printing to make large parts, tooling and components at relatively small volumes, where… Read More
Following Betsy DeVos’ confirmation as Secretary of Education, the American education system could drastically pivot in unexpected ways. It’s difficult to know exactly how. What we do know is that the declining state of education, and historical opposition DeVos has already faced for her views on its privatization, will lead to the development of new technological advancements. Read More
As over 108,000 attendees from 208 countries filed into the echoing halls of Mobile World Congress last week, I was reminded of the old First World War chant, sung by the soldiers on the front lines in a tone of heavy irony: “We’re here, because we’re here, because we’re here!” Every year, Mobile World Congress positions itself as the world’s meeting… Read More
One of my favorite metaphors is the guy who stumbles out of the bar late at night and can’t find his car keys. Although the keys are probably somewhere back in the bar, he doesn’t look back there, nor does he look around his car: too dark in both those places. Instead, he looks under the street light.
Now it’s probably a good thing this guy never finds his keys; he… Read More
Roughly 1.2 billion people worldwide are currently learning a foreign language. If you are one of them, this article is for you. Whether you are learning to improve your job prospects, do better in school, get ready for a trip abroad or even just for fun, there are three common habits that all successful language learners share. Read More
Gyroscope founder Anand Sharma seems pretty content when we meet up for a walk to The Mill, a hip cafe known for its $4 toast in San Francisco’s NOPA neighborhood. It’s a rare sunny day in the city and his startup is growing. His self-tracking platform with a sleek UI has added a genetics and step tracking component and soon blood tracking. He’s also closed on a small sum… Read More
Photo filter app Prisma released an update this week giving users a new way to browse all the different styles available. And for select users, there’s also a way to create styles of their own. While it’s calling the new interface a “store,” the Prisma isn’t actually charge you for filters. Instead, it says the store is a new way to browse styles, particularly… Read More
Did you watch the Oscars? Did you care about the Oscars? Statistically, if you’re American, you cared 25% less than 10-15 years ago. US movie theaters sold 5.5 tickets per capita to the American public in 2002, a number which has since declined to 4.1 in 2016. The overall box office looks healthy, thanks to ticket price inflation, but behind the headline numbers, Hollywood is not what was. Read More
Uber has patched a bug in its code that allowed a researcher — and anyone else who might’ve discovered the problem — to hail Uber rides without paying for them.
Anand Prakash, a security researcher, discovered the bug in August and received permission from Uber to test it in the U.S. and India. He was able to successfully exploit the bug, getting free rides in… Read More
VCs have invested hundreds of millions in messaging companies that either haven’t raised a round for the past couple years, have folded, or don’t show evidence of expanding much beyond a niche user base. It’s probably too soon to write off many as failed investments. But it is safe to say these are not companies generating a lot of buzz in startup circles. Read More
